Black Friday
by ilikeoctopus
Summary: Pride gets dragged out of bed to go Black Friday shopping with his siblings. Oneshot, AU


**A/N: …This is late. Really late. I apologize for the delay (especially since this was actually written about two years ago and I never got around to publishing), but here it is, and enjoy!**

"Hey, Pride. Get up."

Pride groaned as a firm hand gripped his shoulder and shook him gently. He kept his eyes firmly closed and flipped his body to face the other side of the bed, covering his entire head with his blanket. "Mmph," he muttered. Wrath wouldn't get him out from under the covers, even if Sloth _had_ fallen asleep on top of the stove again.

…Well, maybe if he had. But only then. He didn't want the house burning down and another huge hospital bill to manage before their father came back.

The shoulder shaking persisted, however, and after a while Pride finally gave in. "What do you _want_, Wrath?!" he growled irritably.

His brother flipped the blanket off of Pride's body in a single, practiced motion. "Greed wants to go Black Friday shopping. You know him; if something's fifty cents off, he'll buy it, let alone fifty _dollars_ off."

Pride sat up slowly and glanced at the clock. "It's 11:30. At _night_. I've only been asleep for what, three hours? And he wants me to accompany him while he goes shopping?" he fumed. "What does he think I am, a babysitter?"

Wrath turned around to head out of the room. "He's waking everyone up to go with him, so I decided to spare you the bother of having to deal with him trying to get you out of bed. Be ready to head out in ten minutes," he added, flicking on the light as he stepped out into the hallway.

The boy groaned again and dragged himself out of bed and into a rumpled t-shirt. How did he end up with such bizarre siblings?

A bit more than ten minutes later, all of his siblings save for Sloth, who couldn't be bothered to get up, were jammed into the small car that the family owned. Lust, Greed's newest (and improved, he claimed) girlfriend had been dragged along, as well.

Wrath and Gluttony were lucky enough to each have a seat to themselves in the front, but Pride had been wedged in between Greed, Envy, and Lust in a strange mesh of limbs that could usually only be achieved by an intense game of Twister.

Pride tried to curl up so that he wouldn't be crushed and thought longingly of his bed, which would probably be cold as ice by now at this time of year. Greed and Lust were having an excited conversation about the hottest deals on the market and what they were going to buy, while Envy seemed to share his sentiments about being dragged out.

_I should've followed Sloth's example in this regard,_ Pride thought despairingly, but it was too late for second thoughts as the Wrath pulled the car into the crowded parking lot. _How are there this many shoppers? Humankind really_ is _crazy._

After a few frantic minutes of scouring the parking lot (frantic on Greed's part, anyway), their car slid into a sorry excuse for a parking spot at the edge of the lot. Pride practically fell out of the car and onto the pavement as his two most enthusiastic siblings scrambled out and dashed into the store. As Gluttony loyally trotted after Lust, Envy and Wrath joined Pride in watching the crowd swallow the three others.

Envy rubbed the base of his neck. "Well, I don't see why they dragged us with them, but as long as we're here…" He shrugged and headed towards the entrance. "Let's go."

Wrath and Pride looked at each other, then followed after him. "We'll learn from the experience," Wrath chuckled. …Pride wasn't so sure.

As they walked through the automatic doors, which always seemed to be open anyway, Pride was hit with a wall of hearty commotion and heat. As he looked around, he saw a variety of people and things flying about in a mad rush of start-of-holiday-shopping fever.

Near the toddler clothes section, an enthusiastic-looking man had cornered a flustered employee and was brandishing pocket-sized photos at him, shouting above the noise about his daughter's third birthday.

Over at the other side of the store, a white-suited man was arguing with another employee. Pride caught a snippet of their conversation; the employee was frustratedly explaining that they did _not_, for the last time, carry fireworks or explosives of any sort during shopping season, or at any other season besides early summer.

Pride was really becoming wary of shopping season.

Wrath tapped him on the shoulder, distracting him from watching a very burly man and a cold-eyed woman's squabble over a discount-priced piece of furniture, which seemed like it was about to escalate into a fight at any moment.

"I just saw Envy walk into the clothing section," he said, striding off with a quick glance behind to see if Pride was following him.

"Women's or men's section?" Pride muttered under his breath, only half-jokingly. He really did want to know, to tell the truth…

Having been distracted by the bizarre shopping scenes around him, Pride suddenly realized that he had lost Wrath in the confusion of shoppers and panicked. He wasn't the sort of person who would get lost in 7/11, but he was definitely not the kind that felt comfortable among discount-crazy bargain hunters on Black Friday.

Clenching his teeth, he cursed his short figure, deciding to cut across the arts and crafts section of the store to the packaged foods area. If he knew his siblings, that would be where Gluttony was for sure, and finding him would be a start.

Heading off in that general direction, he caught sight of his kindly old teacher, Mrs. Bradley, in the novel section with a mousey-haired girl and waved to her distractedly. She smiled at him and continued to peruse the shelves, and Pride continued on to the tall freezers of the frozen foods aisle.

There, he skirted around a suspicious looking man with a strange hairdo, as well as a hassled-looking man with graying hair. Catching sight of Gluttony (_at last! _he thought), Pride hurried over, thankful to find a familiar face among the sea of lunacy.

His tubby sibling was hovering over a large bag of potato chips, gazing at it longingly and muttering to himself. As Pride approached him, Gluttony looked up and immediately asked, "Do you think Lust will let me buy this?"

Sighing in frustration, Pride cursed Gluttony's inability to make decisions without Lust's consent. "Yeah, yeah. Sure. We need to go find everyone else in this mess." _He's just a little kid…_

He strode off with Gluttony, bag of chips hugged to his chest, stumbling after him. "Let's go find Lust!" he said enthusiastically, "She's looking at Women's Apparel."

Pride glanced back, and nodded, swiftly changing his course. As the two boys neared the racks of clothing, they heard angrily raised voices above the din of crazed shoppers running around. And they sounded distressingly familiar…

One look confirmed his fear for the worst. Lust and Greed were locked in a heated argument with the two Elric boys, who lived across the street from them. Pride stepped closer to find that the object that they were arguing over… was a beautiful necklace decorated by a large, shining ruby.

"…Don't care whether you look pretty or not, I'm willing to bet my father's vintage suit of armor that you have ten just like this one!" The shorter of the two boys was yelling – right, his name was Edward, Pride was pretty sure.

Greed sneered at the brothers. "Oh, but it's not just _any_ necklace. You see, this is the 80 percent discounted, one of a kind ruby necklace that my girl has been hunting for for years," he said condescendingly.

Right before Pride decided to step in, a brief, haphazard thought flashed through his mind. Hadn't Greed only known Lust for the past three months? Dismissing the thought, he stepped forward into the argument, trailed by Gluttony.

"Oh hey, aren't you that Pride kid? The one who's older than me, but _smaller_?" Edward seemed enjoy the sight of someone shorter than him in the squabble, and was about to start rubbing it in, if Pride knew him.

He was about to come up with a quick retort, but Greed snarled, grabbed Edward's collar, and swung the boy around to face him. "Don't you try to slink away from the subject," he growled. The growl abruptly turned into a grunt of surprise and pain as the Elric boy socked him in the gut, hard.

"Brother, no!" the younger kid cried out, and ran forward. Alphonse was his name, Pride noted to himself fleetingly before throwing an arm out to catch him.

"Just let them take care of this themselves."

Alphonse looked about to protest, then thought better of at the sight of his brother and Greed snarling at each other. He knew better than anyone that his brother, no matter how short he was, could take care of himself.

At that moment, a black-haired man in a blue uniform, whistling to himself, strolled around them, plucked up the necklace, and strolled, just as casually away, only turning his head back briefly to say something over his shoulder that Pride only caught a few words of.

The small gathering gaped after the man in disbelief. Edward looked like he was about to explode. His brother sidled up to him cautiously, looking at Edward as if he was afraid he really would blow.

"Brother? Did he just…?"

"Yeah… Who was that…?"

Greed scratched the back of his head and shrugged nonchalantly.

Pride tilted his head. "What was that he said?"

His brother shrugged again. "Something about a present for some Madame or other for Christmas. Or something like that."

Just then, Envy jogged over, followed by Wrath. "We could hear your voices clear on over from the other side of the store! It's a wonder you weren't kicked out by store personnel." He smirked at Edward. "_Right, _pipsqueak?"

Once again, Alphonse leapt forward to restrain his brother, who was shouting… _interesting_ profanities, and this time Pride decided not to stop him.

Wrath looked on amusedly, tsk-ing quietly. "Well then, if you aren't going to buy anything, let's be on our way. It's almost three in the morning, and we are wasting time arguing with these children." He turned, ignoring Edward's yells.

The rest of the siblings followed after Wrath, leaving the two Elric brothers to deal with the manager of the store, who was closing in on the scene.

Envy cackled evilly. "I totally called it; they're gonna get chewed out for causing a disturbance in the shopping atmosphere." He said the last few words in an overly prissy voice.

Pride sighed, Envy had probably called the manager on them himself; he had never really forgiven Edward for trying to pull off his "wig."

As they exited the store (_finally_, Pride thought to himself), Greed's cell phone rang, which wasn't weird in and of itself, but at three in the morning…?

Greed picked up and started speaking. "…Yes…? Oh, hello, Martel. …We just came out of the store." He paused for a moment, then blinked. "Hm? Really?" Suddenly, he grinned widely. "We'll be right over." Ending the call, he turned towards his siblings. Pride could already feel a sinking weight in his stomach.

"Well, guys, there's a huge sale going on in the shopping center across the street. It's one that we can't miss for our lives…"


End file.
